Duality in the Gospels

In the ancient world, a world which was by no means as primitive as
we sometimes like to think, the scientific study of the heavens was known
as Astrology. Then, gradually, this term began to be associated with what
orthodox scientists regarded as the lunatic element of star-gazing, the
art which saw in the position of the stars and planets at a given moment
signs of good or bad fortune for human beings. Feeling that this denigrated
their scientific method, those who applied observation and reason to the
stars and suns of space left the predictors to get on with things, left
them with the term "Astrology" and renamed the scientific side of things
"Astronomy."

I am not passing judgment either way on the rights and wrongs of astrology,
indeed I am not qualified to do so. I mention the above purely as a reference
to reported history, and because I believe that the time has come to make
a similar change with regard to the use of the term "Theology." Theology,
in my view, has become discredited by ignoring observation and reason
in favour of sometimes very convoluted ways of making the "facts" fit
the doctrine. We need to move towards a much more scientific and empirical
way of looking at the claims of religion, and to do that we first need
to abandon the use of the term "Theology" replace it with
something else. I suggest "THEONOMY" The farcical reasoning of
many theologians in the past has meant that the discipline is so discredited
that only by adopting a new name, and accepting the separation from the
past that such a change implies, can there be any hope of acceptance.

Starting with an open mind and working from the evidence to a conclusion
is not an easy path, but it is a very rewarding one. I would like to share
with my readers the results of one observation of something strange which
hit me between the eyes, as it were, many years ago.

I was studying the Gospel of Saint Luke when a massive contradiction
in that record struck me. In chapter 22 verse 36 Jesus tells his disciples
to buy swords even if they have to sell their clothes to do so. This stood
out in stark contrast to the pacifist teaching of Jesus during his ministry
in Galilee, and the issue was made all the more puzzling by the fact that,
according to Luke's account, when Peter lashed out with a sword a little
while later, Jesus rebuked him! Matthew makes the rebuke of Jesus even
stronger, having the Master utter the famous words "They who take the
sword shall perish by the sword." (Matthew 26.52.)

This was very puzzling, and led me to make a more careful study of the
events of the Passion Week than I had hitherto done. As I did this it
became obvious that the character of the person who rode into Jerusalem
on a donkey was very different from the personality displayed by the gentle,
caring Prophet of Galilee. Suddenly the reader is faced with the strange
phenomenon of the teacher who taught pacifism and non-resistance now whipping
moneychangers out of the Temple, cursing fig trees without reasonable
cause, and seeking to arm the disciples. This violent personality holds
sway until the visit of the Master and the disciples to Gethsemane after
the Last Supper, and then with equally remarkable suddenness the characteristics
of the central figure is reversed and we are face to face with the non-resister
of the northern ministry appearing before Pilate.

These discrepancies were so glaringly obvious that it seemed to me that
someone must have spotted them before, and I began a search to discover
if there was any reference to the problem in theological writings. There
was. I discovered that a group of German scholars, belonging, I believe,
to the Aufklarung (Enlightenment) School had identified the problem in
the early 1800's and had considered that the most likely explanation was
that the central figure of the Passion Week was not Jesus at all but
an identical twin brother of his, who impersonated his peaceful twin in
order to take the throne of Israel. These scholars accepted that there
were indications of a concerted attempt at the time to restore the Royal
House of David. I was not satisfied with the twin brother hypothesis,
as I could not believe that the disciples would have been deceived by
such an impersonation, especially as the alleged twin brother was so different
from the character they had been used to. Regrettably over the years I
have lost the notes which I made at the time, and have been unable to
rediscover the references to this problem in the writings of the Aufklarung
School.

Theologians nearer to our own time have also identified the problem,
but unlike the Aufklarung thinkers they have tended to avoid the implications.
Montefiore, for example, considers that the swords which Jesus commanded
his followers to buy were purely symbolic, a form of prophecy which looked
ahead to the way in which the disciples, after the Resurrection, would
have to fight against difficulties to spread the gospel. I find no justification
in the Lucan account for this view, which frankly strikes me as being
an evasion. Around the turn of the century Johannes Weiss also propounded
a similar symbolic view of the troublesome swords, likewise holding that
they represented the future condition of the disciples, who would face
such opposition and difficulty as the went around preaching the Gospel
that they would have to hack their way through the difficulties, the swords
standing as symbols for the moral fight. This also seems highly fanciful
and is not supported by any evidence. However, the need of such evasions
merely serves to highlight the fact that there is a problem.

Further study revealed other ways in which the central character of
the Passion Week differed from the Galilean. During that week the
leader showed a strong tendency to make mystical predictions about the
future. Foretelling the future was rare in the Galilean ministry,
and when it did occur tended to apply to things which could be reasoned
out very easily from the available facts - a kind of prediction which
we all make every day, when, for instance, we say "I'll be there." It
was also clear that even the beginning of the period is uncharacteristic
of Jesus of Nazareth. The entry into Jerusalem was obviously intended
to be the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy given in Zechariah
chapter 9, verse 9, that the King of Israel would enter in such a manner.
In other words, the events of Palm Sunday were an attempt to re-establish
the Davidic Monarchy - something Jesus had always resisted, although the
people had on at least one occasion sought to crown him, the story being
recounted in John's Gospel, chapter 6, verse 15. It needs to be made clear
at this point that the nationalistic feeling of the time did not regard
Herod as a legitimate King, for he was not of David's line. Herod was
in fact a puppet of Rome.

As I have mentioned above, the approach of the Crucifixion heralds a
change back to the gentler character, and the Jesus who seemingly told
his disciples to buy themselves swords now utters the words "No more
of this" (Luke 22.51.) when Peter lashes out with the sword which
he had clearly obtained in advance of the commandment to buy arms. Matthew's
even stronger reference to this event has also been referred to above.
This transformation occured when the Master and his disciples went to
Gethsemane after the Last Supper. A militant sword-purchaser went into
the olive grove and a pacifist came out. What really happened?

To make any sort of sense out of this it needs to be accepted that
Jesus was of the Royal line of David. The Gospels are in no doubt
about this, the family trees of Joseph the father of Jesus as set out
in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke link him with the ancient King, and
Jesus is frequently referred to in the Gospels by the Royal title "Son
of David." In other words, Jesus was the Messiah, the rightful King, for
that was what the term "Messiah" meant. The Christian Church has taken
over the term and shamefully altered its meaning. It did not indicate
that Jesus was the Son of God or the redeemer of mankind. It did not mean
that he was Divine. It simply meant that he was a common or garden King,
or at least had the right to be one if he so chose. The people would not
have chosen to attempt to make him a King by force, as John's Gospel states,
if he had not been of the line of David. In those days the populace hoped
that the Messiah would liberate the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from
the hated Roman yoke and it would have been strange if there had not been
considerable pressure on Jesus to be anointed King and placed on the throne
of his forefather David.

Jesus, however, did not want the throne. He was a pacifist who recoiled
from the militancy which was all around him. He advocated non-resistance.
"If any man strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
"Whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him for two miles."
The latter was a reference to the right of a Roman soldier to force any
male to carry his kit for one Roman mile, or to bear the cross of a condemned
criminal for up to the same distance. These quotations from the words
of the Master make his attitude very clear. His actions matched his words
as he shunned the politics of the day and devoted his life to the service
of mankind.

The people, however, were hungry for a restoration of the ancient monarchy,
and if Jesus would not take the throne then they would naturally look
for another valid representative of the ancient House, hopefully someone
who would fulfil their expectations and lead them in battle against the
Romans. Is it possible that the German theologians were correct, that
the person who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday was not
Jesus at all, but an alternative Messiah? If so, who was he? An identical
twin brother would fit the bill admirably if the only issue was the hereditary
Messiahship, but as I have indicated above, I consider such a deception
to be impossible. And anyway, why did the German scholars have to assume
that the figure of the Passion Week was believed by the disciples to be
Jesus? Could not the disciples and others, having been disappointed in
their hopes that Jesus would liberate the nation from the Romans, have
consciously chosen to follow someone else?

If this is so, then the Gospel writers have clearly avoided making the
issue specific, an indication that the Gospels are not as open and truthful
as we have traditionally believed. Clearly they cannot be totally accurate,
as there are contradictions in them - consider, for example, the four
accounts of the empty tomb which differ widely. I refer to the empty tomb
rather than the resurrection because there is no account of the resurrection
of Jesus in the Bible, the story being taken up when it was all over and
the tomb left empty. This question of the watering down of the issue by
the four evangelists serves to turn the spotlight on the whole Passion
Week discrepancy of the reliability of the Gospels, which show much evidence
of being biased towards a particular philosophy rather than being independent
accounts, and show also evidence of having been edited after writing.
Incidentally, I find no problem with slight differences between the accounts
of the same incident by different Gospel writers. As any police officer
experienced in taking statements after an incident knows, witnesses seldon
agree completely. Indeed, too much agreement is often regarded as indicative
of collusion - human beings are expected to be fallible! It will by now
be clear to the reader that I do not accept the traditional view of the
infallibility of Scripture.

This is therefore an immensely grey area and we are up against not only
the unreliability of the ancient records but also the recurring problem
for historians of Christianity, namely the paucity of historical information
about Jesus. We do, however, have to attempt an explanation for the strange
contrast between the two periods mentioned in the Gospels, and my own
theory about this, outlined below, is not meant to be a final answer but
rather an attempt to get the debate going by positing what I consider
a possible - even probable - scenario. Incidentally, I take the view that
the very fact that this contrast is not entirely left out of the story
of Jesus by the Gospel writers is evidence that there is something in
it. I am sure that they would have liked to avoid it, but they were unable
to, so there comes into play the old axiom that when a writer records
something embarrassing to his own side it is very likely to be historical.
This does not mean that the scribe has not made such amendments as he
could get away with to play down the difficult matter, but it does mean
that the basic story is founded on fact.

So who could it have been, this mysterious figure who rides into
Jerusalem in a manner clearly intended to fulfil the ancient prophecy
that the King would come riding on an ass? The political ethos of
the times dictated that it would have to be a descendant of King David,
and to be the legitimate Messiah he would have to be the next in line
to Jesus. If we take the traditional view that Jesus was unmarried and
childless, then his brother James would be the natural successor. The
character who rode into Jerusalem, however, does not seem to be at all
like James, as he is revealed to us in other places. So the intriguing
possibility arises that the phantom figure was in fact a son of Jesus.

Was Jesus married? In the light of the Jewish attitude to marriage,
in which a single man was seen as an oddity and disapproved of, it seems
likely that he was. In the accounts of the dawn visit to the tomb of Jesus
by a group of women Mary Magdalene is given priority in the lists
in all of the synoptic gospels. In John she is named as the only visitor.
Jewish rules of precedence, I am given to understand, always place first
on such a list as we find in the synoptic gospels the wife of the deceased.
Could Jesus have been married to Mary of Magdala? If this is the
case then he could well have had a son, and it may be that such a son
of Jesus attempted, on the Sunday before the Crucifixion, to restore the
ancient throne of Israel, doing this by default as it were, as his father
had clearly no interest in matters political or military.

I have no difficulty at all in accepting the idea of a married Jesus,
but for some reason not readily apparent the Church has insisted that
he was not, and could not be. There seems to lie behind this assumption
of his celibacy an implication that marriage and sex are somehow unclean,
a point advocated by Saint Paul, but one which I reject.

This scenario leaves us with the problem of the character reversal on
the following Thursday evening, but there is in the Gospels an indication
of what might have occured. At Bethany there was an anointing, and it
seems clear from the text that this was a Royal anointing, in other words
the creation of a Jewish King. The possibility I present is this. Jesus
of Nazareth, hearing of developments in Jerusalem, and realising that
his son's action might well spark off a bloody confrontation with the
Romans, decided that new occasions taught new duties and that the only
way he could defuse the situation and restore peace was to accept the
throne himself and thus make null and void the claim by default of his
son. After accepting the crown at Bethany Jesus walked to Gethsemane,
informed his son that the game was up, and thus deflected the imminent
risk of war.

In support of this argument I offer the stories of the trial of Jesus.
Pilate is clearly sympathetic to him. This is not in line with what we
know of the character of the Roman Prefect, but is quite understandable
if he had a vested interest in keeping Jesus alive - for if Jesus died
his son would be back on the throne and the threat of an armed uprising
by the Jews would be re-activated. Pilate therefore attempts to get Jesus
released, but being unsuccessful in that takes to his second line of defence,
namely to get him down from the cross alive. Whatever the cost, the pacifist,
non-resister from Galilee must remain on the throne of Israel, and let
us not forget that the superscription which Pilate ordered for the cross
read "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

I admit to a great difficulty here. My hypothesis requires that the
Last Supper should have been attended by the true Jesus, for around that
supper table there was enacted a series of events which indicated that
an attempt was being made to give Jesus safe passage to the house of Pilate.
Yet the Last Supper occurs, apparently, before the restoration of the
Galilean character, and it appears that around this time Jesus was actually
in Bethany being anointed. I hope that it does not sound like an evasion
when I suggest that the chronology of the Gospel writers might have got
mixed up. The story of Judas going out from the supper room to betray
his master has strange elements. If it was a betrayal, why was there no
resistance from the other disciples? And why, when Jesus said that one
of them would betray him, did they ask whether they were to be the guilty
ones? It does not make sense unless we assume that Jesus wanted the betrayal,
that one of the disciples had to do it, that a method of selection by
apparent chance, a sort of drawing the short straw scenario, was implemented,
and Judas drew the short straw. Incidentally, Jewish theology would not
have seen the outcome as the result of sheer chance, but would assume
that God directed the casting of lots.

The "betrayal" by Judas, then, could have been an attempt to get Jesus
safely through a now hostile city, to Pilate's house. The city would be
hostile because the people had been deprived by Jesus of the possibility
of having the King they wanted, namely his son, and it was necessary for
Pilate to know where Jesus was, have him clearly identified to the soldiers,
and bring him to safety.

The interest of Pilate in keeping Jesus alive extends beyond the
trial to the Crucifixion itself. The people call for the release of
Bar Abbas and want Jesus eliminated, and there may well be a great significance
in the meaning of the name "Bar Abbas." It may be translated as "Son of
the Master." Is it possible that this popular figure was in fact the second
Messiah of the Gospels, a son of the Master who tried to seize the throne?
Then at the execution itself there is a clear attempt to bring Jesus down
from the cross alive. The chief evidence for this is that the soldiers
were instructed not to break the legs of Jesus. The breaking of legs was
always done when an execution took place on Jewish territory and the Sabbath
was approaching, it being a concession by Rome to the Jewish antipathy
to having bodies or living victims hanging on the cross over the Day of
Rest. When the victim's legs were broken death came quickly, for the crucified
person could not breathe without pushing up and down with the legs. To
make an exception to this mutilation was most unusual, even unlawful,
and such a decision would never have been made by the soldiers on duty,
not even by the Centurion in command of the execution squad. It could
only have been made by Pilate himself, and the only possible reason was
that the Prefect wanted Jesus to survive. This matter is set out in detail
in a remarkable book by a Jewish scholar, Hugh Schonfield, entitled "The
Passover Plot."

So was there a second Messiah in the Gospels? If my explanation
seems far-fetched, so be it. I admit that there are many difficulties
with the "Son of Jesus" scenario. Nevertheless it fits fairly well with
the recorded evidence, and whether or not my interpretation of history
is true in that regard, there remains a clear indication in the Biblical
record that the table-overthrowing, fig tree-cursing, sword buying character
who walked the streets of Jerusalem in the spring of an unidentified year
was not the peaceful prophet of Galilee.

It may be objected that Jesus was too young at the time of the Crucifixion
to have had a son old enough to take an active interest in politics. There
are two traditional views of the age of Jesus when he was crucified, making
him alternatively thirty or thirty three years old. There is no evidence
to support either figure, but there is evidence that he was older. In
John's Gospel, chapter 8 verse 57 some people say to Jesus, "You are
not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"

Such a statement might be made to a man in his forties, but if he were
apparently younger than that, say in his thirties, then surely the chosen
expression would be "You are not yet forty years old ---- ". The political
scenario which is revealed in the Gospels suggests that the crucifixion
took place late in the Prefecture of Pilate, for instance the anxiety
displayed by Pilate when he was threatened by the Jews would have been
more likely in the closing period of his office, when he was not in favour
with the Emperor and any adverse report would have been threatening. I
suspect therefore that the Crucifixion took place in 35 or 36 AD, the
latter date marking the final year of Pilate's term of office, and if
Jesus was born in 6 or 7 BC then he could have been in his early forties.
He must have been born before 4 BC when Herod the Great died. Having a
son of around twenty is therefore by no means out of the question, and
it is not unbelievable that at such an age a youth fired with political
and nationalistic zeal, and armed with the privilege of being a son of
David, might have sought to fill a vacuum in the life of the nation. Perhaps
it happened, perhaps it did not, but I think it a distinct possibility.